“There were other uses for me. I was kept in the palace as the king’s chosen interpreter, for one. It was there that I met Mithras. The king’s only child.” The Bringer’s mouth tightened. “He shouldn’t still be alive, Esmer. I don’t know what sustains him, but it isn’t natural. Only Weavers are intended to be immortal.”
“Perhaps he’s cursed as you are.”
“Perhaps.” A strained, irritated breath passed through his nose. “In those early years, we grew to be something like brothers. Though I was rarely allowed to leave the palace, Mithras did everything in his power to ensure I was treated as an equal, even if that meant sharing clothes and eating from the same table. When we were in the Dream Realm as Evernight scholars, we’d spend our spare moments practicing swordplay or reading stories as you and your siblings once did.”
“That’s difficult to imagine.”
He shifted his gaze from the Nocturne to me. Something burned there, simmering deep within the shadows. “I know. But loneliness can command a strong and desperate pull.”
We stood in silence for a few moments, looking out across the Nocturne. What a terrible fate for a child—a wretched foundation on which to build a life. It explained more than one of the shadows that darkened the Bringer’s eyes.
“The Weavers oversaw two citadels,” he began, switching subjects. “One in Istralla, Firstlight, and one in the Dream Realm, Evernight. Firstlight allowed for Weavers to maintain relations with earthly rulers.Sponsorships from various kingdoms and such. Evernight is beyond explanation. A rigorous academy, a decadent fantasy, a symbol of Maker-given prosperity.”
I looked to Evernight, at its glowing spires and impossible proportions, beckoning to us. Without understanding why, I took a step forward. Then another. Before I realized it, I was leaning over the Shadow Bringer’s balcony and staring deep into the Nocturne, wondering what it would feel like to swim beneath its waves. Could I swim through it—all the way to Evernight? What would it feel like? Would it warm my skin or chill it further?
I studied a particularly tall swell, considering.
The Bringer yanked me back. “Be careful. It’s known to call dreamers to its depths.”
I gritted my teeth, eager for the Nocturne’s call to fade yet reluctant to be released from the Shadow Bringer’s arms. “What would happen if I fell into the water?”
“Well, considering we’re both cursed, you’d probably burn. Generally, however, most dreamers walk in. Willingly.” He frowned. “If properly trained as a scholar of Evernight, you’d enter the Nocturne in order to influence the dream of another. On behalf of your bonded Weaver and at their direction.”
“And untrained?” I asked.
“Untrained, you would drown yourself in the Nocturne, jumping from dream to dream until you lost all sense of who you were or why you entered the Dream Realm in the first place.” A wicked gleam formed in his eyes. “Dreams are feeble things, meant to live and die by the will of the Weaver who built them.” He drew near. “You’d wake as a hollow shell of your former self, unable to recall the most basic elements of your identity.”
“That’s terrible. Why would the Maker—” Then I noticed a faint smirk on his lips. “You’re joking,” I said incredulously. “You’re actuallyjoking.”
“I am not,” he insisted. But the smirk grew, widening his mouth as itbloomed. “There are many things I do well. There are fewer things that I do willingly. Joking is not something I do wellorwillingly.”
Without warning, a deafening sound echoed across the Nocturne.
Dmm. Dmm. Dmm.
It sounded like a death knell. No—louder.
Dmm. Dmm. Dmm. Dmm.
After the seventh bell, the air stilled. I expected the worst. A monster, rising from the Nocturne, water dripping down its scales. Or an evil darkness, devouring Evernight like the moon in the king’s dream. Instead, the Nocturne’s waves fell at once, smoothing into glass, and seven great bridges were fully revealed, spanning across the sea from Evernight into the Weavers’ separate territories.
“Evernight’s call,” the Shadow Bringer explained. “The bells ring to summon the Weavers.”
“For danger or for amusement?”
“Sometimes danger, demons and the like.” He walked back inside his bedchamber, arranging himself atop the bed in a stiff, uncomfortable-looking line. “Sometimes amusement. Either way, it doesn’t concern us.”
I followed his lead and climbed into his bed, pulling a slip of quilted velvet up to my nose. Maker, the smell was divine. “What do you define asamusing, Shadow Bringer? Paint me a picture.”
He propped his head up on an elbow, peering at me from under his draconic helm. It was beginning to look quite lopsided; its caged mouth and one of its two horns had broken off, and I desperately wanted to yank off the rest of it.
“My amusement used to be dreaming. Flying over the Nocturne with outstretched wings. Imagining and creating entire worlds.” His voice grew soft, a velvet purr. It was positively distracting, though I doubted he was even aware he was doing it. “Now the only thing I can qualify as amusing or enjoyable in the slightest has been the time I’ve spent with you.”
I promptly turned around, shocked. I didnotwant him to see the flush rising to my face.
“Your standards for entertainment are a bit low. I don’t know that I’d qualify this as either amusing or enjoyable.” That was a lie. Parts of these dreamshadbeen exhilarating. But if I focused on the darker moments—the hurt, the grief, the terror—they threatened to devour me whole. “Particularly since our eternal damnation is imminent.”
“Yes. There is that.” I felt the bed shift as he moved closer, once again enveloping us in awhooshing cocoon of shadow. Only this time, instead of his back, I was clearly pressed against his chest. “We still have two dreams left. We just need to find something in one of them that helps us break free.”
